A funny email

August 15, 2015 • 1:00 pm

A reader who will remain unnamed sent me an email that made me chuckle:

I’m currently about half way through your Faith vs. Fact and finding it a most pleasurable experience to read something which is at once so authoritative and so totally in accord with everything I already believe about the relationship between science and religion.

All the more disquieting then, to report that my reaction to the very first line of text in Chapter One was a guffaw of disbelief:

‘There are no heated discussions about reconciling sport and religion…’

I’m glad I overcome my initial scorn and persisted with your excellent book, but I do have to ask you a simple question:

‘Have you ever been to Glasgow?’

102 thoughts on “A funny email”

  4. I am not the correspondent. Glasgow is represented in the Scottish football league by two professional partisan soccer teams, as named above. One has Catholic support basically and the other Protestant, or the other way round. It is a continuation of an age old religious feud, sometimes violently so.

  5. I finished reading the book today. One thing that bugs me about the whole issue of reconciling science with religion is that it assumes the aim from the outset. What if religion and science cannot be reconciled? The book was a very powerful argument against the reconciliation ever happening, but it truly amazes me just how much time and effort is dedicated to the cause.

    Even with all that good will and motivated reasoning, what’s there to show for it? Vacuous sentiment and sneers at disbelievers. In other words, bugger-all. Well done in exposing all the crap that people have put out trying to square the circle.

  7. There’s a serious element to this post. A Glaswegian friend, complete with authentic accent, was in a pub in Northern Ireland during the troubles. Someone asked him which team he supported, Glasgow Celtic or Glasgow Rangers. His friend delivered a hard kick under the table; be extremely cautious of your reply because team affiliation was seen as amounting to religious affiliation, and the wrong answer could be seriously dangerous.

    He sensibly took a neutral position and answered ‘Hearts’.

    1. Not actually neutral, Hearts are the Edinburgh equivalent of Rangers with Hibs the equivalent of Celtic.

      1. I didn’t know that, but assume it’s less politically partisan than the Glasgow connection.

        1. Only slightly less partisan.
          My birthday is Orangeman’s Day, which commemorates the defeat of the Catholic Jimmy-2 at the Battle of the Boyne. It is depressingly frequent for me to wake up to the news of multiple deaths in Glasgow from some fight between Celtic and rangers fans, particularly if they’ve had a football match against each other the day before. The highest score I can remember was about six in one fire-bombing.
          When Prof CC spoke in Glasgow a couple of years ago, it was a quiet night.

      2. The correct safe reply is “Partick Thistle”, a Glasgow team that, compared to the “Old Firm” of Celtic and Rangers, is decidedly second rate. The questioner usually falls about laughing that anyone might support such a team, and the tension implicit in the original question is thus defused. I have a friend from Glasgow who was not the least bit interested in football, but deliberately learned the names of the Partick Thistle team, to be able to back up his claim of supporting them, just to be on the safe side.

          3. Heck, that’s exactly the way I read it in Haggis’s post! Had to go back to see what it really was when I came to yours.

        3. Or, as I think I just saw Billy Connolly comment in a video, the team that most Englishmen think is called “Partick Thistle Nil”

          cr

          1. On the same lines, by the way –
            a guy is walking through Belfast one evening when he suddenly feels something hard in the small of his back and a voice says “Catholic or Protestant?”
            He’s terrified since he knows the wrong answer will cause Bad Things to happen to him. But he thinks quickly and says “Err, neither. I’m Jewish”.
            “Oh, badluck! Ye just met the only Arab in Belfast!”

            cr

        4. How dangerous would it be to give what would be, for me, the only honest answer: “I have no interest in football”?

        5. The questioner usually falls about laughing that anyone might support such a team, and the tension implicit in the original question is thus defused.

          And then the question would be repeated as “but are you a Hun Partick supporter, or a Tim Partick supporter?”
          (For non-Scottish, this is equivalent to the Ulster question of “are you a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?” And the penalty for a wrong answer would be a kicking, with an additional kicking for being a smart alick.)
          I just tell people, if asked, that I loathe and detest football and always have done. Get it out in the open from the start.

      1. I’ve never thought about it before but I wonder if it has something to do with the Norwegian connection to Scotland. Then again that may have nothing to do with it. Just a thought.

        1. It is – the influence of the Norwegian Vikings on language in Scotland and northern England is very strong.

          1. This is very true – my surname is Gawthorpe. This name including several close variants was given to many settlements in the North of England by pre 8th Century Vikings. However I live in Leeds and as such am known as a Loiner, after the Latin name for the Forest (Loidis) that covered the area in the dark ages.

          3. Haha… no not Wetherby. I’m from Leeds and live on the outskirts only 10 – 15 mins from Wetherby. The reason it’s part of my handle is that as a kid I spent virtually every Sunday in the Spring and Summer fishing there and generally mucking about, learning about the wildlife from my dad and granddad. As such the couple of miles of river downstream from the town is one of my favourite places in the world. It’s full of happy childhood memories, and I visit regularly with my own kids now.
            As for Loiner – it is not a commonly used or well-known term but as far as I’m aware it is the official demonym for people from Leeds. Most local people would probably describe someone as a Leeds lad or lass however rather than a Loiner.

      2. Speaking as a Glaswegian, it has puzzled me too. Glasgovian would be more logical; someone who went to Harrow School is called an Old Harrovian.

        1. And from Manchester a ‘Mancunian’.

          On the other hand Liverpool is a more straightforward ‘Liverpudlian’ (or Scouser, of course!).

          2. Sorry, but I’m a scouser, and this is completely untrue. The nickname comes from the local dish and is used by everyone in the city to refer to themselves as a badge of honour. Now a ‘Woolyback’, that’s a different story…

          3. Well, you’ve just confined it is true!

            The fact that the others are derogatory is neither here nor there!

            /@

            Sent from my iPhone. Please excuse all creative spellings.

            >

          6. « “Scouse ” has become part of a genre of slang terms which refer to people by stereotypes of their dietary habits, e.g. Limey, Rosbif (for the English), and Kraut (for Germans). »

            A-ha!

            /@

          7. Sorry, I should say “yes, it refers to the local dish BUT it is worn as a badge of honour”.

        2. I’m reminded of the principle of evolutionary biology where there’s more variation near a species’s geographical origins than amongst any colonies that have spread out from it — with African humans being the textbook example. Seems the same holds for language as well….

          b&

  8. Sounds like something out of Belfast.

    Football in general can get bloody in parts of the world even without religion.

    1. The two issues are very closely interrelated. Many of the settlers in the Plantation were from central Scotland.
      The fitba fans of Glasgow could claim to be keeping fitba to it’s traditional roots of gang violence. It’d be an excuse, but it does have some historical accuracy.

    2. When it’s not religion, it’s often class, and often the two hand-in-hand, of course.

      It’s always at least geography. Folks so close together who hate each other so much just for their proximity… and neither of them in any mood to move as it might suit the other 🙂

  9. Hell, go to South Bend and bask in the glow of Touchdown Jesus. It is to visiting football teams what Lourdes is to wheelchairs, crutches, and canes — or so the Fighting Irish would like to believe.

    (Of course, what the two actually have in common is their utter lack of efficacy.)

      1. Is there a joke I can put in here, something about “Of course, the Jew gets put ‘down’ by the …”

        Never mind. We can all see why I never did stand-up or work as a comedy writer. Can’t draw a straight line, either, though I can cut one with a scalpel, strange enough.

  10. There’s actually a bridge in Glasgow from which you can see both football stadiums. It is an unholy spot, filled with criss-crossing energy bolts of angry fire.

    2. Oh dear – he’s wearing colours. That’d get him barred from many pubs. A disastrous situation.

    2. Let me guess — they’d feel so offended by it that they’d piss in your beer and shit in your shoes, right?

      See, that’s why we’re so superior here in the States. Our moderate football fans would just serve you Bud Light and spill Nacho cheese sauce on your shoes. Granted, they do that to everybody, friend and foe alike, and I’ll be damned if I can tell the difference in either case, but still….

      b&

      1. Sports has given me whatever insight I have into the relationship between moderate and evangelical religious believers.

        Like a lot of fans, I developed my allegiances to certain sports teams early in life, dependent almost entirely on geography. I continue to follow those teams to this day and, when they meet their main rivals or when it looks like they’ve got a shot “to go all the way,” my interest gets dialed up.

        My teams have other fans — the kind who dress up in costumes, or strip down to the waist and paint themselves in team colors (sometimes even in freezing weather), who hoot and holler and scream and generally make spectacles of themselves at games. I could never, not in a million years, be like them. And I don’t want to associate with them, or even sit near them at the ballpark, especially when I take my kids out to a game. But I can understand the nature of their sentiments and allegiances.

        Now, those fans on the other side of the stadium, the ones dressing up or stripping down, making obnoxious asses of themselves hooting and hollering and screaming for the other team? Bunch of insane assholes, you ask me. I can’t begin to imagine what motives them.

      2. Unless it’s an open carry state or there are many concealed carry licenses in the wallets of the people around you, said wallets being carried in close proximity to implied guns.

    3. moderate football hooligans

      Learn from the experts. It may not be a great claim to fame, but Glasgow does produce some of the finest fitba hooligans on the world. Grade A.

  13. They still do a public plea to Jesus at the start of UT Knoxville football games. Like spilled grape soda, religion seeps into every fabric of U.S. life, and is awfully hard to get out.

  14. It’s not just what might happen in a pub; if you look at the Wikipedia Sectarianism in Glasgow entry, you find most of it is about football. When Rangers signed up a Catholic player in 1989, he was the first significant one since the First World War (as Wikipedia notes, it’s the international exchange of players that has really broken that segregation down now). There is specific Scottish legislation against sectarian football chants, which is controversial from a free speech perspective:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-24825094

    https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2011/08/old-firm-sectarianism-bill-a-threat-to-free-speech/

  15. I wouldn’t know, I am an asportheist.

    [Well, okay, watching – but mostly sports I participate or have participated in.]

  16. Looks like everybody needed a break from the triggers, PC, CBT and tomfoolery of college student “sensitivity.” Here in Montana, “football” still means good old pigskin.

        1. Joke:

          Old Jewish guy decides to convert to Catholicism. Priest runs him through every ringer, over every hurdle he can, then finally completes the conversion process for him, though still not trusting the result.

          One Friday night, the priest arrives unexpectedly at his new parishioner’s home, just to check up on him, and finds him eating chicken soup!

          “What are you doing?” he demands to know.

          The old ex-Jewish, now-Catholic guy says, “But, Father, I sprinkled it with water and repeated three times, ‘Thou art fish. Thou art fish. Thou art fish!'”

        2. Or maybe the ball can be circumcised…

          I think you may need a better urologist.

      2. I remember hearing about some pro(American) football player wearing gloves so he didn’t have to touch the pigskin, for religious reasons. Dunno about the truth of such a story, alas.

        1. Seems pretty doubtful. On the one hand, gloves would interfere with performance. On the other, I’m pretty sure I’d have heard of it, were it true.

  17. I’ve been to many games at Neyland Stadium up on Rocky Top and it irks me every damn time they feel the need to have some reverend lead the congregation, uh, I mean, the fans at the stadium in a prayer. I haven’t been to other college venues but I have a feeling this merger between church and football occurs at far too many games. Now if they prayed to General Neyland to bless my beloved Vols, to lead them to victory and to crush our foes (especially Alabama and Florida) then I’d probably be a lot more enthusiastic. Now if the congregation will rise and turn to page 98 in your hymnals and sing out to the heavens together… Rocky Top! (To understand the Big Orange Faith a little better, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQPOTUJZO2M) May St. Peyton Bless Y’all!!!

  18. He,s right about Rangers Celtic Matches, or the Old Firm as they’re called, Billy Connelly “a Celtic Supporter” does a very funny routine on being at an Old Firm Match if you can find it, but this will give you a flavour.

    1. Well, there’s this (possibly also the longest place name ever mentioned in a pop song; they sing nothing else for over 6 minutes…)

          1. Lone ranger I remembered. Quantum Jump not. Which reminds me – I really do need to read the Guinness Book of Hit Shingles one of these days. It’s a serious hole in my pub quizzery.

  23. This does raise something i have pondered …

    Are atheists less likely to be sports fanatics?

    I have always been an atheist, and have never developed any real interest in identifying as a fan of a particular team in any professional sport.

    Not much of a “joiner” in many things I guess …

    1. I do know that Himmler didn’t want any atheists in his SS because he believed atheists favor the individual over the group and can’t submit to a ‘higher’ goal or individual.

      I don’t think that’s true though. Atheists are just as sensitive to peer group pressure and political ideals as religious people – as long as there is no supernatural element involved.

      1. Himmler was certainly right about me. [Would have been right… whatever]. In fact, if too many people agree with me I start getting all paranoid and wondering where I’ve gone wrong.

        As far as sports go, though, when I do reluctantly take an interest in sport, it’s usually to favour the ‘other side’. Oracle (who won!) in the America’s Cup, Oz in trans-Tasman stoushes, and [whoever is fighting the All Blacks this week]. Makes me real popular with sports fanatics, so there’s no downside. 😉

        cr

        1. Makes me real popular with sports fanatics, so there’s no downside.

          I was “fitting in” one day by making vaguely appropriate noises at vaguely appropriate times as Scotland played fitba with the Auld Enemy. I ruined the effect by not knowing that they changed ends of the pitch at half time. Ooops.
          I did get out alive. But it was close.

          1. I will admit that New Zealand sportsfans, though obsessed, are generally complete and utter wimps compared with Glaswegian fitba hooligans… 😉

            cr

          2. The West of Scotland resisted multiple Viking hordes over the centuries. They’ve got form.

      2. Atheists are just as sensitive to peer group pressure and political ideals as religious people – as long as there is no supernatural element involved.

        I wouldn’t be too sure. Certainly in a society where atheism is generally considered abhorrent, the only ones to actually be willing to voice disbelief in the gods will be those who don’t worry about what their peers think of them.

        When atheism is unremarkable, sure. But it wasn’t in Germany a century ago, and it’s not here in (most of) the States today.

        b&

      1. Well, for what it’s worth, I am a loyal supporter of Harlequins Rugby Football Club and a long-standing season-ticket holder. I get a much bigger buzz from singing ‘The Mighty Quins’ along with about 10,000 other fans than I ever did singing hymns all those years ago.

        Some atheists are clubbable, I guess, and some are less so. Just like everybody else.

        2. I’m the consummate loner, but almost always have a favorite sports team. For a decade or more it’s been the (now tanking) Detroit Tigers.

        3. Some atheists are clubbable,

          See my comment of a few moments ago. Very clubbable, but also vulnerable to edge weapons as well as blunt force trauma.
          Is the implication of that URL – that the bl^H^H^H website is approaching one and a quarter million comments accurate?

      2. Here (in NZ) sport has largely displaced religion as a vehicle for pervasive mindless fanaticism. I suppose it’s an improvement, but only in the same sense that syphilis is preferable to cancer…

        cr

    1. Great Sketch with an early appearance of the great Gregor Fisher or Rab C Nesbitt, here he is in Glasgow City of Culture, probably need subtitles.lol

  26. Partick Thistle fans chant:

    Hello,Hello,How do you do?
    We hate the boys in royal blue,[Rangers]
    we hate the boys in emerald green,[Celtic]
    so f*ck the pope and f*ck the queen.

    1. I suppose I should promote the Edinburian SF author Charlie Stross here. Along with his website.
      I notice that Charlie is part of the Edinburgh Freethinkers (“Edinburgh Freethinkers, P.O. Box 666, Edinburgh”), who may have been involved with ProfCC’s visit to Scotland a couple of years back.

  27. I’ve always said that (American)football is itself a religion in much of the US. A very syncretic and ecumenical one, of course, but only selectively.

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